Take the next step: become an activist

I am a tiny bit ashamed to admit, but I watched Saturday’s Melodifestivalen (a Swedish music competition to determine this year’s Eurovision representative for Sweden). Yep, it seems that my genes took the better of me, and here I am, publicly talking about this contest. However, I watch it for other reasons than most. Yes, I want the best song to win and it is entertaining. Yet, it has become a more and more political show, and I love to evaluate what each country offers as their representative from a feminist point of view. It is a perfect show to evaluate gender representations for each country. Sweden has been doing quite well to balance the singers and dancers, as well as not sexualising every female performer, like some countries do (ie. Poland in last year’s Eurovision). And wow, Conchita Wurst, the major win last year? So exiting!

So now that I have shamefully defended my fondness of Eurovision, I want to share with you something quite outstanding. Loreen, Sweden’s winner two years ago, came out with a new single. She performed it with a pair of pants and a bare torso with hair to cover her breasts, and she performed together with Kazaky, an Ukrainian synthpop dance boyband. Kazaky have been criticised by Russian’s anti-gay groups by calling them inhuman and an abomination. I leave you with their show this weekend.

The reason why I find this important to share, is that as much shit that is happening around the world, there are activists out there acting. There are groups of people working for a better future, through politics, art, music, influence, studying, working on community projects, educating, and so forth. As today is International Women’s Day (or rather, International Day for Women’s Rights), I want to focus solemnly on equality. Today I marched, proudly, with a super sized LGBT rainbow flag. Last year today, the same march ended with a racist, fascist and sexist attack on some participants, which left them in intensive care and in a coma. And even though this could happen again, more people participated this year, chanting “out with the racists, in with the feminists”. It is about unity and organisation. With unity we conquer all, we make things happen, we create change. Loreen’s show was touching – she questioned gender. I applaud her, because there are not many that do it so publicly and so eloquently. The same goes to Conchita Wurst – even though Russia was obviously not happy with that show.

Do not be afraid to take action and to be part of the community. You are currently sitting behind a laptop, smartphone or a tablet, and I assume you found this article thanks to certain tags that I added of which you are interested. Knowledge is everything. The more you read, the more opinions you acquire, the more you will understand about complex social issues like gender, feminism, politics.  Social media is a great tool to create change: feminism has never been stronger and better understood, environmental movements are stronger and better understood, you have freedom of speech, debates, discussions – great to connect and share ideas and thoughts! But we have to remember that we are humans. Some change will happen as you write on your keyboard thoughts and ideas, inspiring those that are capable and free to take the first step for change. As humans, we need to feed into this community unity, getting out there, witness the problem for ourselves, create a change in our own community. We need to take the first step in our community, as scary as it may seem. Otherwise join someone who did.

I will not wish you a happy women’s day. I hate the fact that we need such a day, and I hate the fact that I even need to write an article like this. How would life be if we were, in fact, free? No violence, no hate, no jealously, no greed? But we are not there. The reality of the situation is, we will never be there, but we will certainly make it very difficult to overrule the good in people. Be kind to one another, be compassionate, help develop the step into a more unified species. With all the shit that is happening out there, from wars to climate change, environmental crimes and diseases, we sure need to be a more unified species.